Location: Ljubljana / Gala Hala / Slovenia
Concert date: 09.03.2013
Attendance: 200 – 250
Ticket price: 8 € before 21:00 / 10 € after 21:00
A pile of radical noise, raw energy, lucid messages? That moment when one of those jerks shows up, completely hammered, and hassles the musicians on stage? When you know Nikki Louder (the most regular performers) will once again deliver a royal set? Moonleejada always serves up all of this – the festival put on by the label Moonlee Records, which roughly once a year throws a festival hosting the acts under the label’s wing. So for this year’s edition, besides Nikki Louder, the lineup also announced our own Trus!, Croatia’s Cripple And Casino, their fellow countrymen Analena and Macedonia’s Bernays Propaganda. The first had to cancel their show due to illness, and with that the festival may have lost some of its more fundamental variety, though not its quality. The remaining four bands all lean on the legacy of post-hardcore and post-punk at the very least (certainly much more than Trus! do), and let’s just say Bernays Propaganda sit on that latter, softer side of this kind of alternative. That really showed in the bands’ live sets.
The festival was opened by Croatia’s Cripple And Casino. The classic four-piece with a female vocalist put out a new record this year called With High Regards (you can read the RockLine review HERE), which shows the band is in great shape – and they confirmed it live too. Even though they rely on fairly typical, at times a bit watered-down post-hardcore and screamo patterns, you can’t deny their one-of-a-kind energy and their knack for connecting with the crowd. Technically, a slightly louder vocal was missing, as Petra’s singing came out dry and pushed into the background, which ultimately spoiled the overall impression, since Moonlee bands are, after all, bands that put a lot of weight on strong, message-driven lyrics. So you could expect a bit more from the evening, although the opening act was very welcome.
Next up were the locals, Nikki Louder. This is one of those bands that’s just good at every gig. They simply can’t, well, be bad. Not even average. The fact is that the band keeps tearing through the same handful of Slovenian venues, but the trio still has so much of that primal energy, so much of that original charm young bands have. So it’s perpetual youth plus years of experience, which probably results in such reliably excellent performances. This time they flat-out steamrolled Cripple and Casino, being more radical, more concrete, and definitely more interesting, more distinctive, more unique; simply better. Above all it’s about the heavier experimentation, especially with the various effects of frontman Blaž Sever, who sends massive walls of sound into wild oscillations; so this is a departure from the guidelines of all the »post-» genres, truly one-of-a-kind noise rock that holds its own against the world scene with no trouble. This was also the moment of that aforementioned drunk jerk, who jumped on stage and hassled the trio; luckily the band reacted extremely well and got through the set to the end. Nikki Louder will also be releasing a new record soon – they’ll premiere their new album Golden Men on April 19 at Menza pri Koritu.
Next on were the by-now cult Zagreb quartet Analena. Yet another band swimming in post-hardcore waters, but unlike, say, Cripple And Casino, thanks to a bigger dance feel and a melodic 4-chord pattern they often drift into »pop-hardcore« territory. A big part of the crowd came from Croatia, and most of them were Analena fans, who probably showed up at Gala Hala exclusively for them. Still, we can draw a few more parallels with Cripple And Casino – once again a female singer fronts the band, though her vocals vary more than Petra’s. It’s not just screamo singing, but also more conventional (and at the same time unconventional for the genre) singing, that more melodic pop singing she uses during the dance parts, which makes the band come off as a slightly cheap pop-punk band on some songs. That’s really interesting, because other times they veer into truly radical screamo / post-hardcore, that raw, primal, ear-splitting and above all anti-commercial sound that screams for rebellion. That swing between an almost clichéd melodiousness and radical noise was perhaps the most memorable thing about their set.
As the night’s headliners, and deservedly so, the Macedonian post-punkers Bernays Propaganda. took the stage. They too put out a new album this year, titled Zabraneta Planeta (you can read the RockLine review HERE). Out of all the noise, Bernays Propaganda, despite the high volume, represented the somewhat softer side of the evening. More pronounced riffs, thick bass lines, a sonic story that doesn’t get lost in excessive distortion or a desired chaos effect… and a more legible vocal, for the third time that night a female one. Bernays Propaganda somehow brought together the best elements of Mr. Moonlee’s evening – intelligent, atypical melodiousness, danceability, yet with enough experimentation to stay intriguing and appealing, noise they don’t drown in, a story that stays legible despite the occasional chaos. A band that truly takes you back to the 80s of the last century and reminds you of the peak of post-punk, when popular music was steeped in cerebral alternative, when high intelligence was average and when standards for musical taste were simply high, yet accessible to everyone. The Macedonians thus closed the night in the best possible way.
Moonleejada 2013 showed off yet another excellent pleiad of bands under its wing, while also giving hope to everyone who defies the capitalist (music) industry with their independence. Moonlee Records stand for everything in music that’s genuine, important and, last but not least, good, and Moonlejada proves it again and again.
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